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Qualcomm San Diego

Senior Staff Engineer/Manager
Current Employee
Has worked at Qualcomm for 6 years
April 25, 2018
San Diego, California
3.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

In terms of benefits, Qualcomm is excellent. They offer a free gym, a good 401k match, good pay, decent bonuses and stock options, excellent health care (free), many employee programs, lots of tech training, a nice campus, and onsite cafeterias. You name it, they have it.

Cons

The company is a dinosaur. The management structure is deep, with many redundant levels and political power structures. Decisions are not made for technical reasons but rather to benefit your Director or VP. There are periodic layoffs that tend to hit the lowest performers first, but they also lay off those who do not "fit in" (i.e., anyone who actually has good ideas and is somewhat vocal).

Job performance is increasingly about perception rather than results. Career advancement varies greatly between departments. If you are lucky enough to have a benevolent manager, you'll get promoted every few years; if you have a bully, you'll be forever stuck in the same role (i.e., 10 years or more) since you're not deemed worthy despite all your excellent reviews.

Qualcomm could easily reduce headcount by 75% and still keep their core businesses: Modem and MSM. They are an old, slow, flabby company that is only focused on cost reduction rather than innovation.

Advice to Management

You need a complete reboot. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Reduce management down to a few levels and stop being so political (i.e., fighting between departments).

Get back to doing ASIC work and be like the Old Qualcomm, where you would stop at nothing to win market share.

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